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September 10, 2005
"Boricua"
Culture is an interesting word to ponder upon and define. It essentially entails an individuals beliefs, their customs, traditions, perception, and overall lifestyle.
I consider myself priviledged to be a part of two different cultures. One of my cultures entails being an American, specifically African-American from San Diego, California. I am proud to be African-American and appreciate the opportunities that I have today, such as being able to recieve an education and be treated equally like every individual should. I am proud of achievements that African-Americans have made such as Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Emmett Till, Rosa Parks and many others that deserve to recognized.
In African-American culture it is common to love to dance and move to the rythym of a popular hip-hop song like that of Missy Elliot or the Ying-Yang twins. It is also common to get your hair braided in various styles and there are amazing techniques to doing so. The barber shop and hair salon are common meeting places to talk about drama on the street or what is going on in the neighborhood.
Sadly African-Americans are more likely to have children earlier, commit more crimes, and become involved in gangs ending their hopes and their dreams. I've seen it happen all to often even in my own family. But I consider myself bless as an African-American to overcome the obstacles that I've seen many others fail to overcome.
Being a San Diegan is also part of my culture. I was born and raised in San Diego and love to eat Mexican food. A large part of my time living there was spent relaxing at the beach, riding my bike at Coronado Island, hanging out at the park (or occassional trips to the zoo), enjoying the neverending sunshine, and appreciating the picturesque view of the sunset. This was my life as a San Diegan.
Another part of my culture is being Puerto Rican. My mother is African-American and my father is 1/2 African-American and 1/2 Puerto Rican. So I am 3/4 African-American and 1/4 Puerto Rican. Boricua in Spanish means Black and Puerto Rican, which is what classifies me.
The sad thing is that I do not know much about my Puerto Rican culture, because my parents are divorced and I have lived with my mother my whole life. I became better connected when I met my Puerto Rican grandmother Zayda, who taught me how to make "Arroz con Pollo" and "Platanos", which are very tasty Puerto Rican dishes. I am fluent in Spanish and love everything about the Spanish language.
I am proud to be Puerto Rican, but discouraged that I do not know as much as I should about what it is to be Puerto Rican. I hope that in the future I will contact my Puerto Rican family and become closer to another part of my culture.
Posted by lcisperez at September 10, 2005 08:09 PM
Comments
Yasmin--I loved this essay (?? I hate calling writing essays!!) so much. You say so much in so few words. Your culture is sooo riveting, so interesting...so comfortable. I feel like its something I could sink into. What I liked most about this essay was that you described the "downside" of your culture, what you wish you could erase, but what you are proud of overcoming as well. Great job!!
Posted by: Brenna at September 10, 2005 10:03 PM
Yasmin--I loved this essay (?? I hate calling writing essays!!) so much. You say so much in so few words. Your culture is sooo riveting, so interesting...so comfortable. I feel like its something I could sink into. What I liked most about this essay was that you described the "downside" of your culture, what you wish you could erase, but what you are proud of overcoming as well. Great job!!
Posted by: Brenna at September 10, 2005 10:10 PM
Sorry...I always post twice for some reason!!
Posted by: Brenna at September 10, 2005 10:14 PM
Yasmin,
I noticed that your grandmother and I have similar names. hehe. First of all, I enjoyed your essay and it was simple and easy to read therefore easier to comprehend. You mentioned about your family, language, ancestors, hobbies and almost everything enough to know about you. There are both cheerful and intense parts. Good job!
Posted by: Zaya at September 12, 2005 03:42 PM
After reading this post to myself outloud, I realized that what I said about my culture truly represented who I am. This was of course in terms of a cultural aspect having to do with family heritage. This is something that I did not choose and was given the opportunity to decide on. Culture is just something that we are all born into and are forced to relate to.
What I thought was not represented in this post was who I truly believe that I am. I believe that I am an idependent person who has a solid belief system. I love to read, write, and dance. These are all subjects that are not directly related to my culture, but to me as a person. I felt that I was not able to portray these aspects in my writing. However, my writing was appropriate for this type of assignment.
--Yasmin
Posted by: Yasmin at September 24, 2005 09:30 PM
When focusing on the syntactic level of my work I think that I did not elaborate as much as I should have on some parts of my writing. I made my explanations fairly short, because there was too much into them for me to go into detail. So I attempted to summarize as much as I could about san diego and about my ethnic heritage in a few condensed paragraphs.
I expressed myself in a meaningful way by trying to think about my culture and what was most important to me. After thinking about it for a while the most significant thing that tied me to my culture was food. Food is important to me in my culture, so I made sure that I mentioned it. Also, when I think about other cultures, the first thing that I think about is food, because it is an initial connection that I make with the word culture.
I thought that my writing was not as organized at it should have been, but I tried to put it in order by mentioning my regional culture and then my ethnicity. I thought that this came out fairly well. Although in the beginning I tried to define culture in my own terms to get my ideas for writing about my own culture. Now that I look at this I think maybe I should not have tried to define the word culture, because different people have their own definition of this word. Also, it did not seem as relevant to my blog in particular. However, I wrote this to get my ideas flowing and set the direction of my blog. I am satisfied with my blog even though I think my ideas could have been more organized.
My strength as a writer and as a thinker is just coming up with lots of ideas at the same time. Sometimes I try to make a list of them, or I will just write out as they make sense to me. This is how I begin to write my papers. Then I go back through those ideas and see whether they make complete sense or not. Sometimes I have so many ideas that they are difficult for me to organize. So I have to do peer editing and get suggestions from other writers. I can improve this by being open to other ideas, because sometimes I tend to just want to write in a straightforward manner, and not explore other avenues of writing. I think that learning other ways of writing and editing will help me to become a stronger writer. By learning how other people write, I can discern if my own writing is effective enough or not.
--Yasmin
Posted by: Yasmin at September 26, 2005 08:56 PM
It may be helpful for you Yasmin, to play with idea maps...if you are a thinker that has many ideas all at once and they don't particularly line up in outline form, this is a good tool to play with, at least for you initial drafts.
Now that you have had time and distance, see if you can do a revision of your post, organizing it in a way that feels a little better to you.
Posted by: ellen at September 27, 2005 02:16 PM